People around the world love British Blues. Here, we share some of their thoughts:
– Dan Aykroyd, aka Elwood J Blues, USA, in an original and previously unpublished quote, “The Rolling Stones – they exposed Solomon Burke, Bobby Bland. I took their songs for what they were, like Around and Around, it’s a great interpretation and the realisation that it was a cover only came later. The English Blues scene is so great and so rich – Zeppelin and Cream were Heavy Metal Blues, but still Blues.” See The Rolling Stones performing Around and Around here.
– Cleve Baker, DJ, North Carolina, USA, Confessing The Blues radio network, “My favorite British Blues Band…. John Mayall & the Blues Breakers, John made the Blues Cool, He made it his own and he still makes it hot and heavy till this very day. His influence on the Blues genre will be everlasting……”
– Huey Morgan, DJ and musician from New York, USA, now British based, narrating Great American Rock Anthems: Turn It Up to 11 for BBC television, said “Throughout the mid-60’s the British Invasion was arguably the major influence on all upcoming bands across America The harder it got in Britain, the better it got for us.”
– Alice Cooper, musician from Detroit, USA, also in the Great American Rock Anthems TV show, said “I am driving along with the band, and then all of a sudden I heard ‘Da na, da na, da na na na NA’ and I went, ‘Stop the car, so what was that?’ The Kinks [You Really Got Me]. It was angry, the guitar sounded like a dog barking, I went, ‘You know, what is that?’ To me, that was the beginnings of real hard Rock, Heavy Metal. And then The Who were doing all this destroying their instruments on stage. So We learned attitude I think from The Who, we learned creativity from The Yardbirds, and all of us learned melody from The Beatles. And maybe we learned out strut from Mick Jagger.”
